Inside the East Wing
The first scholarly look at the emergence of the modern FLOTUS as an office in its own right
Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the East Wing of the White House—which houses the staff of the first lady—became the professional, organized, and increasingly politically engaged office we know today. From its initial expansion under Jacqueline Kennedy to its formal reorganization under Rosalynn Carter and the passage of the White House Personnel Authorization Act in 1978, the Office of the First Lady emerged in these years as a significant element of the overall White House staff structure.
Drawing on extensive and groundbreaking archival research, Elizabeth Rees weaves together the stories of individual influential women and the roles they carved out of the bureaucratic edifice to illustrate how the modern Office of the First Lady came to life. Exploring changing gender roles during the mid-twentieth century and the impact of second-wave feminism, this book repositions the women of the East Wing within the broader context of the presidency, reinstating these often-overlooked professionals to the picture of how the White House and presidential politics function.
- Stacy A. Cordery, Iowa State University, author of Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power BrokerBacked by scrupulous research and fascinating insights, Elizabeth M. Rees has penned a riveting history of the office of the First Lady. Inside the East Wing analyses the infrastructure quietly humming along in the background: how budgets are made, issues discussed and acted on or discarded, and the personnel fostering the range of First Lady activities. It uniquely adds to our understanding of the singular power and the oft-hidden limitations of the position by concentrating on those working most closely with the First Lady. It fills a gaping void in First Lady studies. Inside the East Wing is required reading for every First Ladies scholar and political scientist, and all historians of modern women, the presidency, and contemporary politics. In addition, any general reader interested in First Ladies, modern America, and how the government works will find it an absorbing, rewarding read.
- Elizabeth J. Natalle, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, author of Jacqueline Kennedy and the Architecture of First Lady DiplomacyThis groundbreaking book provides a missing piece of first ladies history—the evolution of the office staff of the first lady from 1961 to 1981, and the establishment of the modern Office of the First Lady. Known as the East Wing, the first lady’s staff is the counterpart to the president’s staff in the West Wing, and Elizabeth Rees’s carefully researched historical analysis demonstrates the way power is separated, shared, and fought over from the Kennedy to the Carter Administrations. Using a frame of distaff culture and the context of the second wave women’s movement, Rees analyzes the women who evolved in distinct roles—social secretary, press secretary, chief of staff, and more—to support the first lady and the White House activities that are integral to a successful presidency. This valuable book is essential to the historical record and brings to the forefront the names and contributions of East Wing staffers who might otherwise have been lost in the archives. A must read for scholars, practitioners, and students, and an advancement in first ladies studies.
Elizabeth Rees is the Mark E. Solomons Fellow in American Political Thought and Government at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Institute and a Research Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. Prior to that, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University and completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford in the UK.
